termined on firing the train himself. When every thing, therefore, was in perfect readiness, I moved off towards the brow of the hill, expecting the Second Lieutenant would immediately follow me, as he had nothing to do but apply the match which he had already lighted in his hand. Just before beginning to descend, I turned to see if he was near me, and at that instant a most awful explosion took place, by which I was knocked down, and rendered completely senseless. On partially recovering from the stupor occasioned by this dreadful fall, I found myself covered with blood, and most severely bruised and lacerated. With regaining my senses came a confused recollection of my companion, tower, blowing up, &c.; and, on looking towards where the old fort had stood, not a vestige of it was remaining, so completely had the work of demolition been accomplished. I crawled towards the spot with a fearful apprehension for the fate of my comrade, which was too truly verified, for I found him lying on his face, bathed in blood, as I was myself, but, alas! without any power of moving. He was dead every vestige of life had fled. The concussion had been so violent, that every bloodvessel in his body appeared to have burst. I managed to get again to the brow of the hill, within hail of the boats, and having got some of the men up, the body of my late gallant companion was carried to the beach, and we had just time to shove off, and get clear out of reach of musketry, when the enemy made his appearance, in overwhelming force, on the heights we had just quitted. In sorrow and sadness we pulled off to the ship, which had in the mean time stood out with our hard-earned and dearly-bought prize in tow. She had cost us some gallant spirits, and had made sad havoc among one of the finest and bravest crews our Navy ever boasted. : Among the numerous instances of gallantry on that day was one of heroic courage and coolness, on the part of a foretopman, that deserves to be noticed While pulling up to the attack, and when the murderous fire, to which I have before alluded, assailed us, he was struck by grape, which smashed and shattered his left arm so dreadfully, that it was left dang VOL. II. 12 ling by a piece of the skin, which alone prevented it from dropping off. With the utmost sang froid, he laid the mutilated arm on the gunwale of the boat, and, drawing his cutlass, severed the useless limb from his body. He was one of the first on board the enemy; but, before any of us had leisure to think of him, his gallant spirit had fled for ever. He bled to death, and was found on the deck of the brig, where he had jumped on board, with the lanyard of his cutlass between his teeth, while using his right arm for mounting the vessel's side. After hoisting the boats in, we made sail with our prize; and at six the same evening, the hands were turned up for Funeral Service, when more than one heroic spirit was consigned to the watery deep. Among them was our late gallant Second Lieutenant, one of the most promising officers in the service, who, had he lived, would have won for himself never fading laurels. There is something most peculiarly impressive and sad in the Burial Service at sea. The corpse, sewed up in a hammock, in which are put several very heavy shot, as well to secure its sinking as to prevent its afterwards rising, is laid upon a grating, covered with the union jack, which serves for a pall. The grating is placed just upon a balance at the the gangway, and two Quartermasters, one on each side, stand ready to give it a launch. As the Captain proceeds with the service, a death-like silence is preserved, which, when he comes to the words "We commit his body to the deep, is broken by the last cold plunge. A seaman's corpse has found a seaman's grave, and all is over. As we moved slowly and silently from the gangway, where we had seen the remains of our dear departed messmate committed to the briny waves, the most unthinking and giddy among us was forcibly impressed with the awful truth, that in the midst of life we are in death. When we met at mess that evening, one was wanting. The light-hearted, the merry, the gallant F., the life and soul of the mess, had departed; and it was long, long, ere the day of the Church and the Chase was forgotten. (UNITED SERVICE JOURNAL.) MISCELLANEA. n STAGE SWEEPINGS.-It was some years ago the fashion to attribute bulls to Sinclair, in consequence of his having once made a singular perversion of the text in Rob Roy. The language is, Rashleigh is my cousin ; but, for what reason I am unable to divine, he is my bitterest enemy." Sinclair said, Rashleigh is my cousin, but for what reason I am unable to divine. The jokes he endured on this account made him nervous and uncertain, and in Guy Mannering, when Dinmont says he sees two lights dancing bonnily yon,» instead of replying Two! I see but one, and that seems pretty steady,» he said "Two! I see but a couple, and they are pretty steady. » On the first night of the Hunchback, Abbott, from overanxiety, said, in the last scene, « I'll marry no man but my cousin Ellen. His brethren joked and warned him against repeating it, and hardly a night passed that he did not consequently incur the danger of saying the same thing. THE POETICAL CHARACTER. Poetry forms its professors to no definite human character. Like horses trained to play tricks, they can put themselves into all sorts of strange and surprising postures-but they are generally useless on the road. Á DRAMATIC COUPLE. Mr. and Mrs. J-, in the Glasgow company, lived unfortunately very much after the fashion in which Mr. and Mrs. Milton, Dr. and Mrs. Sherlock, and many other great personages are said to have existed; with the exception that Mr. J adopted the permission accorded by Judge Buller, and generally silenced Mrs. J by the argumentum baculinum. One evening, after certain fustigatory performances at home, Mr. and Mrs. J-performed the Duke and Duchess in Tobin's Honeymoon; in one of the scenes of which Juliana has to say that she presumes, if she disobeys his orders, he will beat her; to which the Duke replies Mr. J I'll talk to you; but I'll not beat you. He that lays his hand upon a woman, had scarcely begun this commonplace claptrap, when his spouse, dismissing the recollection of her scenic character, and smarting with her wrongs, darted a look at him, accompanied by an undercurrent of exclamation thus Mr. J. as Duke. -He that lays his hand upon a woman[Mrs. J. gives an indescribable glance, and exclaims-Ugh! You brute!] Mr. J. (proceeding) – Save when she richly deserves it-is a wretch, Whom 'twere base flattery to call a coward. ANCIENT RAILROADS.-It is generally supposed that the Greeks, amid all their advances in abstract science, were comparatively backward in some of the most important practical arts of civilized life, more especially in all that relates to interior communication by means of roads, bridges, &c. There are, however, many strong evidences, both of a practical and a speculative nature, that under all these disadvantages this branch of internal economy was, according to the use and fashion of the age, carried, even at the remotest period of antiquity, to a much higher degree of perfection in Greece than has usually been supposed. Travellers have long been in the habit of remarking the frequent occurrence of wheelruts in every part of that country, often in the remotest and least frequented mountain passes, where a horse or mule can now with difficulty find a track. The term rut must not here be understood in the sense of a hole or inequality worn by long use and neglect in a level road, but of a groove or channel purposely scooped out at distances adapted to the ordinary span of a carriage, for the purpose of steadying and directing the course of the wheels, and lightening the weight of the draught, on rocky or precipitous ground, in the same manner as the sockets of our railroads. Some of these tracts of stone railway, for such they may in fact be called, are in a good state of preservation, chiefly where excavated in stratum of solid rock. Where the nature of the soil was not equally favourable, the level was probably obtained by the addition of flags filling up the inequalities. It seems now to be generally admitted by persons who have turned their attention to the subject, that this was the principle on which the ancient Greek carriage-roads were constructed on ground of this nature. Mure's Tour in Greece. TORTOISES AND MEN. " What a charming excursion! How delightful it is to be thus elevated! said a tortoise, as an eagle was flying up with it into the air; the infatuated reptile never suspecting that it was thus raised aloft only for the purpose of having its shell more effectually broken by being dashed down again. Thus sometimes are men treated by Fortune, when she wants to break the pride that encases them. Tolluntur in altum Ut lapsu graviore ruant. Extinguished almost as soon as distinguished, they go up like the rocket with a great noise, make a brilliant display when they have attained their elevation, and then come down like the dismantled stick. OBSERVANCE OF THE SABBATH. Sir Walter Scott says in his Autobiography, «The discipline of the Presbyterian sabbath was severely strict, and I think injudiciously so. Although Bunyan's 'Pilgrim,' Gesner's Death of Abel,' Rowe's 'Letters,' and one or two other books which, for that reason, I still have a favour for, were admitted to relieve the gloom of one dull sermon succeeding to another, there was far too much tedium annexed to the duties of the day, and in the end it did none of us any good. » Poor Sir Walter if it did no good even to him, what harm may it not have done to others! and what would he have said had he lived on to the present times, when the well |